Part II Gender as psychological essence
5.2. The construction of women, children and men
5.2.1. The texts
Several writers (Gouws 2005, Sevenhuijsen et al 2006, Hochfeld and Bassadien 2007, Schram 1993, Fraser 1989, Razavi and Hassim 2006, and Kabeer 2004) have analysed how gendered discourses of state institutions and their policies have generally negative consequences for women’s political agency in society. One of their arguments is that as policy allocates caring responsibilities to women within families so it impacts on women’s full citizenship. Schram (1993:250) argues that welfare policy operates as a cultural force and reinforces certain family structures at the expense of others. Daly and Rake (2003:17) argue that in the context of welfare states, their programmes shape the lives of women and men by contributing to rather than determining social relations.
The social construction of motherhood has been used by feminists to compare welfare states and to examine how policies have constructed women as mothers and have endorsed maternalism as an ideology (Rake 2003:19). Official documents are the means through which certain ideas and discourses are perpetuated in society. In this view, policies, legislation and programmes can have intended and unintended consequences for the production and reproduction of gender difference in society. In their examination of Welfare States, Daly and Rake (2003: 40) argue that these consequences are ideological and the content of social programmes are normative and can be powerful in creating and reinforcing appropriate behaviour in men and women where social roles can be affirmed and valorised. Social roles can be reflected and continually reconstituted through social policy ( Rake 2003:40).
and children as part of the vulnerable in society, making them potential targets for social development and potential recipients of social welfare policy and programmes.
The goals of both development and welfare are to attend to the needs of those living in poverty, the vulnerable and those with special needs:
“…The goal of developmental social welfare is a humane, peaceful, just and caring society which will uphold welfare rights, facilitate the meeting of basic human needs, release people’s creative energies, help them achieve their aspirations, build human capacity and self reliance, and participate fully in all spheres of social, economic and political life” (Department of Welfare 1997:
preamble).
The first chapter of the White Paper on Social Welfare (hereafter WPSW) outlines a broad economic and social context from which the discourse on the need for social development and social welfare in South African society emerges. This context is characterised as one where there is an historical lack of economic growth, unequal income distribution, poverty, unemployment and unequal access to social services and welfare. In this, there are race, gender, geographical and sectoral disparities, inadequate information systems, a fragmented welfare system, a lack of participation of citizens in policy decision making, a lack of sustainable financing and a lack of equal status amongst partners involved in the delivery of social security (p.1-3).
Together these substantiate historical injustices and economic underdevelopment as well as shortcomings in institutional administrative practices and citizen
participation. And they lay the foundation for the discourse on caring, which construes women, children and men as subjects in need of government services to develop their capacity to support themselves or others.
110
The WPSW then goes on to ‘discuss’ the policy framework (Part 1) for the delivery of developmental social welfare in South Africa. In Part 1 the WPSW covers national strategies, institutional arrangements, human resource development, legislation and
financial and budgeting arrangements, in which the emphasis is on technical and administrative responses to the problem as it has been constructed. In Part II, the WPSW narrows down to focus on the restructuring of the delivery system. Here, programmes and guidelines for action are specified and elaborated upon for the various categories of (mostly) people that have been identified as vulnerable, namely, children, youth, aged, women, people with disabilities, people with special needs and families.
The State’s understanding of what it is to be a (vulnerable) man, woman or child and the relationships they are said to have with one another and society in general can also be read off the Child Support Grant (CSG), one of the key programmatic interventions that emanates from the White Paper and its legislative framework, the Social Assistance Act 59 of 1992. Analysis of the CSG and the Act show that programmatic and legislative criteria for state support for caring within CSG households is circumscribed by certain assumptions and conceptions of care givers and caring.
The Child Support Grant (CSG) was introduced by the Department of Social Welfare in 1998. At the recommendation of the Lund Committee (Department of Welfare 1996:88) it was designed to replace the existing State Maintenance Grant (SMG) that was given to White, Coloured and Indian children and a separate amount, to mothers without partners to support themselves and their children. Paid via a “primary care giver” (PCG) who has passed a means test, the CSG aimed to protect the poorest children (irrespective of race) in their most vulnerable years (Department of Welfare 1996). In other words, poor and vulnerable children are the primary target, albeit through the mechanism of a person (of unspecified gender) deemed to be the child’s primary care giver.
111
Considerable research has been conducted on the CSG, its conceptualisation, history, implementation and its impact on children and poverty. Key studies are, amongst